TAUNTON — Taunton mother Susan Malloch-Taylor recounted getting a phone call that her heroin-addicted daughter overdosed and had to be revived with naloxone on the sidewalk of Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River.

Malloch-Taylor, who spoke at a community forum on the heroin epidemic in Taunton on Monday, said that addiction is a lifelong struggle, but that the overdose-reversing drug naloxone — also known as Narcan — can save lives and can hopefully give drug users another chance at recovery.

“If you keep her alive that’s all that matters,” said Malloch-Taylor, whose daughter is working to stay off heroin. “I thank God for every day that my daughter is still alive. … I’m all for anything that is going to keep these kids alive until they are ready for help. Every parent of a heroin addict living in their house should have Narcan.”

Drug users, their friends and their loved ones in the Taunton area have received the nasal spray version of the opiate overdose-reversing drug naloxone for the last three years, as emergency first aid when trying to save a life before receiving professional medical attention.

Through a Massachusetts Department of Public Health pilot program involving about 15 groups throughout the state, organizations like the Seven Hills Behavioral Health Foundation have been able to hand out the drug, through a team of approved “trainers” who provide information on naloxone use before giving it out to users, their partners and parents.

Connie Mimoso, who coordinates outreach services for the Worcester-based Seven Hills Behavioral Health Foundation, says her organization sends a “mobile street outreach” team to Taunton twice a week to provides services that include distribution of naloxone. After the public forum on Monday, Mimoso said that mobile street outreach team gave out five naloxone nasal spray kits during its Tuesday visit, which was a relatively large amount.

Mimoso said that naloxone is also an outreach tool for drug abuse treatment.

“The outreach team canvasses high-risk places where the population might be at,” Mimoso said. “We target individuals who are at high risk of an opiate overdose, and family members. Narcan is the tool so we can identify their treatment options, whether it be inpatient, outpatient, methadone clinics, suboxone, the treatment right for them.”

Mimoso said the brief naloxone tutorial provided to the recipients, which often include the drug users themselves, emphasizes calling 911.

Outside of the pilot programs, which got their start in Boston in 2006 before expanding to other communities in following years, the Department of Public Health said that the drug has saved more than 2,000 lives.

Outside of the program, paramedics and physicians in Taunton are the ones who typically administer naloxone. They often use an injection to administer the drug. But in 2012, a state law was passed allowing anyone “in good faith” to receive a naloxone prescription and administer it to someone who appears to be experiencing an opiate-related overdose.

Page 2 of 2 - The drug reverses overdose symptoms caused by heroin, oxycodone, methadone, fentanyl, codeine and morphine. The symptoms of an overdose are a slowed heartbeat and depressed breathing.

Learn to Cope is a statewide organization that provides naloxone and training only to the parents of addicts who they support, but not to the addicts themselves.

Joanne Peterson, the organization’s founder, said since December 2011, 18 members of Learn to Cope have saved a loved one from overdose using the naloxone spray.

“This isn’t something to really jump for joy about,” Peterson said. “It’s very sad that this is needed. But this has been an epidemic for a very long time.”

During Monday’s forum, Mimoso held up a flyer made by a mother whose child died from an overdose.

“The slogan ‘is every overdose is someone’s son, a daughter, a mother a father a brother or a sister,’” Mimoso said. “Hopefully, that’s what we are here for, to make sure we have the correct information so we can help out the individuals who are struggling with addiction.”